GLR September-October 2025

criminatory laws. The 1950s—both in France and the U.S.—are seen as a particularly homopho bic, conservative period. Yet Chaplin’s radio and television archival research draws up a fabulous array of more or less

ing information on news and cultural events via the Minitel. The gay male equiv alent became profitable as a hookup site, but GT suffered from wanting to stay af fordable and from poor audience adoption of the new technology.

BECOMING LESBIAN A Queer History of Modern France by Tamara Chaplin Univ. of Chicago Press. 464 pages, $35.

Chaplin’s final chapter forthrightly and sensitively tackles the issue of the nearly complete whiteness of her sources and her history. As mentioned earlier, post-Revolutionary France ide alized itself as a nation of equal citizens. The French Republic did not track citizens’ race. Inspired by the American Declaration of Independence, the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen established that all men were born free and equal in rights. Article 1 of the revised Constitution of 1958 declared: “France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. It shall ensure the equality of all citizens before the law, without distinction of origin, race, or religion.” These lofty Enlightenment principles remained as unrealized in France as in the U.S. The French battle for equal gay rights (e.g., marriage equality and adoption rights) was hard-fought and elicited deep homophobia in French culture. In the lesbian context, Chaplin acknowledges that women of color were largely invisible (ex cept as entertainers) until the 1990s. Tellingly, she manages to get some of her informants to make candidly racist admissions about the absence of women of color—though they were evi dent in photographs taken in lesbian clubs. France’s colonial history would lead to a rising population of people of color throughout the country, but they seem to have kept a low profile in women’s clubs and politics. They would have faced homophobia in their ethnic communities and racial invisibility or hostility in lesbian spaces—as is painfully famil iar to gay people of color in the U.S. They became radically more visible in 1999 following an activist intervention at a les bian-feminist film festival in Paris. A young generation of queers ramped up racial diversity at women’s nightclubs and Pride marches. American-style “identity politics” (now disastrously weap onized in initiatives opposing diversity, equity, and inclusion policies) run counter to France’s republican universalism. Chap lin’s work shows how a lesbian public identity emerged nonetheless. Quite cynically, the French far-right party (for merly the homophobic National Front, rebranded in 2018 as the National Rally) has integrated homophobia into its own nation alist “ La France pour les français! ” movement: Immigrants from the unenlightened (former) colonies are portrayed as sex ist and homophobic; Muslims especially are said to be unable adapt to lay, republican French culture. Becoming Lesbian weaves together four of Chaplin’s arti cles from the past fifteen years into a monumental and brilliant work of queer studies. Her voice is engaging and jargon-free. She makes the scholarship of a handful of French LGBT histo rians available to English speakers, and she significantly en riches the field with her extensive research. Her book should be standard reading in queer history classes and graduate courses in historiography. Although an academic monograph, it avoids being burdened by its extensive documentation, despite con taining footnotes and references that will keep scores of gradu ate students busy. Lovers of French history and queer history (indeed history tout court ) will devour Becoming Lesbian.

coded lesbian-produced women’s cabaret shows airing on French nationalized media. Chaplin sketches a line of continu ity between the earlier Parisian sapphic cabarets and these mid century shows that must have normalized talented mannish lesbians for the general (and perhaps clueless) public. I imagine it as being like blue-haired ladies in Vegas gushing over Liber ace without realizing he was gay. Chaplin continues her exploration of lesbian television into the 1970s, when social and cultural politics became hugely com plex after the tumult of 1968, the rise of feminism, and the ar rival of the gay rights movement. Unlike the U.S., France didn’t have a racial civil rights movement, largely because of its ideal of color-blind citizenship (discussed below). Nevertheless, French airwaves were dominated by conservative intellectuals who were largely hostile to feminism and gay rights. For a cen tury, France had struggled with a declining population and mili tary defeats. Cultural critics bemoaned the decline of motherhood and the psychopathology of sterile homosexuals. Despite the earlier decades of sapphic splendor, it was only in 1977 that a lesbian officially “came out,” undisguised, on French TV. Elula Perrin was the coquettish, French-Vietnamese owner of a glamorous lesbian discothèque. She became the go-to lesbian to appear on debate shows. Despite her lesbian advocacy in the media and in books, she became a lightning rod in gay politics be cause of her culturally bourgeois, traditionalist views. She op posed same-sex marriage, gay parenting, feminists, and butch. For Chaplin, Perrin embodied one of three dominant stereotypes of lesbians in 1970s French media: the conservative “lipstick les bian.” The second was the “good mother” battling for child cus tody. The third was (rather confusingly) the absence of lesbian feminists. The burgeoning feminist movement, while full of les bians, strategically relegated homosexuality to the closet. I’m re minded of the similar conflict in the U.S. feminist movement when Betty Friedan warned that the “lavender menace” would turn public opinion against the women’s rights movement. In the U.S., as in France (somewhat later), this would lead to ugly frac tures between the feminist, the lesbian feminist, and the radical lesbian feminist movements. This complicating dynamic of lesbian politics marked the last three decades of the 20th century, occurring, ironically, just as a personal and public lesbian identity was coalescing in France. Lesbian broadcasts, bookstores, cafés, magazines, sup port groups, and organizations were springing up not only in Paris but all around France. Chaplin carefully documents a number of these. She poignantly relates their importance in con sciousness-raising and in furthering lesbian identity and con nectedness. Most nostalgic for me was her chapter on the Minitel. It was a clunky predecessor of the World Wide Web, launched nationally in 1982 to provide a phone directory, to send email, and to facilitate sex chats. Les Goudous Téléma tiques (GT)—a lesbian Minitel service—only lasted three years (1985 to ’88), but Chaplin richly documents the founding cyber activists’ high ideals for reducing lesbian isolation and spread

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